The hardest thing about Business School (so far...)

November 09, 2015

I remember reading Shawn Achor’s book “The Happiness Advantage” in which he talked about this highly paradoxical behavior which he observed among students on campus: "no matter how happy they were with their original success of getting into the school, two weeks later their brains were focused, not on the privilege of being there … but on the competition, the workload, the hassles, stresses, complaints."

This comment very much stuck with me ever since and I very much wondered if my experience at the Stanford Graduate School of Business would be any similar. I’m now two months into the experience, and I have to say that there is a lot of truth to Shawn’s observation (the validity of which, needless to say, easily extends into other parts of our lives).

So here I am, eight weeks in, and it’s been an amazing ride so far. But truth be spoken, it’s not always easy. I sometimes catch myself with a not-so-positive mindset and then instantly try to remind myself of the day I got “the (admission) call” or the first night on campus during which I couldn’t sleep because of the excitement I felt.

The thing I have most struggled with so far has been focus (or lack thereof). Academics are going all fine (I very much enjoy the classes so it doesn’t feel like much work) and there isn’t too much peer pressure on the grades (mostly due to the student-initiated norm to not disclose/talk about our grades). But the biggest challenge is focus, exacerbated by the sheer amount of offerings and the necessity to say no.

My days often start at 6.15am, working out, and they often don’t end before midnight, reading cases. And during the day, it’s a never-ending back and forth between meetings, classes, social events, information sessions, assignments, and what have you. And in between all of that, you try to maintain your life-long friendships, call your parents, and manage your inbox (#DROWNING)

For everything that I do, there are 5 things that I had to say no to. For every lunch event, there are a handful of equally interesting invitations I have to decline. For every evening activity, there are a bunch of pictures of other events that show up on Social Media which gently remind me of all the things I missed out on. FOMO overload.

The hard thing so far has been to deal with this feeling and to be ok with it. To go to bed and feel appreciative of the 10 things I did, not be regretful of the 10 other things I really wanted to do but didn’t have time for.

Not knowing what you are trying to get out of this experience can make it feel excruciatingly difficult to enjoy. You keep doing things, but you never really feel that you are getting closer to your goal. You do a lot, but you don’t feel like moving.

In the end, every decision is a matter of prioritization. That’s why it’s so important to have one’s priorities clear. What am I optimizing for? Learning things I didn’t know about? Doing the things that help me figure out my future? Go to events which are unique to this environment and which I couldn’t experience outside? There are many “decision models” that can be applied and it’s not always easy.

So far it’s been fairly manageable, yet the number of decisions that need to be made is increasing and it’s even more important to have my priorities straight. It’s important to be open when coming to such open and stimulating environments, but it’s equally important to have some sense of direction that can help lower the pain of saying no to the many opportunities offered.

As I increase my focus, I realize the importance of moving away from "forced 'No's" to "deliberate 'No's." With increased clarity on the things I want to get out of this experience, it's becoming increasingly easy to make a decision in favor of one thing over another thing.

Humility as a key trait of great Leaders

October 26, 2015

Leadership for me is a highly fascinating and sophisticated topic. There is no such thing as "the one right style", in fact, I think that research on this field is even still debating whether it's something acquired or innate. There are different approaches to it and while I think they all hold some truth, I doubt they are complete enough to be applicable to the multitude of situations that require one or another form of leadership (when does an action qualify as leadership anyway?)...

That said, there are some leadership philosophies that quite resonate with me and which come close to what I, personally, consider good leadership. One of these concepts is called "Level 5 Leadership" and is a guiding theme throughout Jim Collins' book "Good to Great". I haven't read the book yet (it's been on my shelf for far too long), but I did read a case study by HBS on it.

In summary, the author analyzed 1,435 Fortune 500 companies and only found only 11 that achieved and maintained greatness (defined as: garnering stock returns at least three times the market's – for 15 years after a major transition period). What Collins found out was that the leaders of these companies were such Level 5 leaders who, by his definition, blend the paradoxical combination of deep personal humility with intense professional will.

I wasn't much surprised by the latter part of the definition, but deep personal humility? Could humility really be that much of a key differentiator I thought? As I kept on reading, I learned that these type of Level 5 leaders routinely credit others, external factors and good luck for their companies' success. They credit others for their successes and take the blame for the collective mishaps.

I further learned that their willpower and drive (the part that didn't really surprise me) are channeled into the cause of the endeavor. They don't make it about themselves. It doesn't matter how they look to the public or how what they do will reflect on their careers, the money or the power. It's just about their cause and the mission. And they have this utterly stoic desire to do whatever it takes to succeed for the sake of that cause.

As I thought about it, I got reminded of another interesting piece of research that I read in the book "Give and Take" which is very much aligned with this characteristic of humility. The author, Adam Grant, was introducing the concept of "Givers" and "Takers." Givers being people who constantly give their time, effort and resources to help others without any expectation of return whereas Takers do the exact opposite (take other people's time, effort and resources with no intention of returning).

Grant was mentioning three examples that were indicators of givers (who are generally very humble). First factor he identified was the gap in compensation between the CEO and the next highest-paid executive. The gap of Giver-type CEOs was significantly lower than that of Taker-type CEOs.

The second cue was based on how these CEOs spoke. The takers tended to use first-person singular pronouns, like “I” and “me,” as opposed to “us” and “we,” when talking about the company.

The third indicator was that the takers thought it was all about them: I am the most important and central figure in this company. When you looked at their photos in the company’s annual reports, they actually had larger photos. They were even more likely to be pictured alone.

My own experience has shown that the best and most successful managers in my career have been the ones who were the humblest. The ones who really made it about the mission, not their ego. Once again, there are many important traits, but the next time I hear someone say "I did this, I built that," this research on humility can help put things into perspective!

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The Power of Intentionality

October 16, 2015

Intentionality. I'm not even sure if that word exists, but I like it. And I live by it. So let me tell you what it means (i.e. what *I* mean).

I'm now 5 weeks into my business school experience, and so much it's been as much fun as it has been stressful. However, I'm not here to discuss the stressful part. I'm here to tell you about the fun part.

One of the best things so far have been the crazy, omg-I-am-starstruck speakers we have had: Jack Ma (founder and CEO of AliBaba), Magic Johnson (former NBA star and now business), Baseem Youssef (known the "John Stewart of the Middle East"), Stewart Butterfield (founder and CEO of Slack), Alan Mulally (former CEO of Ford Motors and one of the world's must successful CEOs) ... the list goes on and on.

So every time we had one of these talks, I made the biggest effort possible to go and attend. And in each session, I would sit in there with my notebook and task myself with one challenge: "what are the top 5 things I am learning in this talk from this speaker that I can actually apply to my life going forward?"

It's not the first time that I'm in an environment where there is "easy access" to amazing speakers like that. In fact, Google had many well-known authors, politicians or personalities come and give talks. But far too often I would go there, sit in the audience, work on my emails on the side or be distracted by my phone. It was always about "having been there," never about "what am I actually learning"? Admittedly, an issue that I also saw happening in countless work meetings during my time at Google.

Not this time though. Maybe it's the fact that I'm paying so much money for this business school experience, or maybe I've just become a bit more serious about life and the things I'm learning along my journey, but the big difference now is that I'm very intentional.

I go there – without my laptop – sit down, turn on airplane mode, take out my notebook, write down the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and then listen to the talk and try to summarize the things I think can help me in life going forward.

It's the same intentionality that I'm applying to my lectures. I put all technology aside and focus on being fully present. And then, in addition to my presence, I try to be intentional – something that I achieve by asking myself a purposeful question.

Give it a try. Makes life much better.

The invisible hand ... of the internet!

September 22, 2015

As I'm back on campus studying business (I did my undergrad in the same subject), it was unavoidable to come across good old Adam Smith and his term of "the invisible hand." Needless to say, the level of my excitement to study microeconomics was rather modest. BUT! I have always loved this term and this idea that there can be an invisible power coordinating or even rectifying things in the background, invisibly.

Simultaneously, I noticed two incidents in the news in the past two weeks. One, there was this Hungarian camerawoman who was tripping up a father and her son who were refugees and trying to break a control fence. Second, there was the viral story of Ahmed who built a clock and was taken as a terrorist.

If you look at them individually, they are both really sad personal tragedies. The refugees were fleeing from war and the last thing they needed was an ignorant woman to hinder them in their search for a better life. And Ahmed, believe me, it sucks to be put into the terrorist bucket. Even more when you come to school and have such personal achievement to celebrate.

At first sight, these two stories don't have much in common. At a second glance though, they both got reported on and went viral. The went so viral that one of my friends was jokingly posting on Facebook "the only thing Ahmed is blowing up is my newsfeed." The attention for these events was high because it seemed so unjust, even outrageous, what had happened to these individuals.

Fast forward to this week, there has been a crazy twist and turn in each of these stories. As you might have heard, Obama invited Ahmed to the White House, Microsoft sent him tons of gifts and Google invited him as a VIP guest to its annual Science Fair where he hung out with Sergey Brin. And the Syrian father and his son? They are now celebrities in Spain. The father, Usama, a former soccer coach, has been offered a coaching job. And the son, Zaid, was allowed to enter the soccer field together with Cristiano Ronaldo over the weekend.

Absolutely beautiful turnarounds. Yet if you take a step back, there is an interesting observation. Namely that the internet has become something like an "invisible hand" that has the power to not just course-correct injustice, but to excessively redeem wrongdoing that is happening in this world. There are many other examples that come to mind, both successful (a crowdfunding campaign for an old handicapped man who was robbed or the homeless child who was studying under the light of a McDonalds sign) and unsuccessful (attempting to collectively bail out Greece).

It's very interesting to see how the internet has the power to invisibly fix incidents like that. It further raises another question though: how can this be systematized and facilitated? Could we create a platform whose only goal is to report on scenarios of social injustice and then invite the power of the invisible hand of the internet to come and rectify things? Also, could the platform become something bigger than just a tool to help individuals? Something like a social police? If you think of the demonstrations that took place in Brazil or Venezuela, if you think of all the corruption that is taking place in India or Mexico – how could we help collectively surface these incidents, expose them, and use the power of the collective to rectify things? Especially in the next 5 years as the next 5B people are connecting to the internet and are increasingly empowered through their smartphones?

This is a question that has been on my mind for quite some time. But until there is a proper platform, we will rely on individuals to surface these incidents and the media to bring these cases to our attention.

So .. what's your story? ...and 49 other Smarttalk questions to use!

September 03, 2015

A few months ago I was having dinner in San Francisco with the organizers of the TEDx conference that I attended in Iran. We were discussing the event as well as my own talk. One of their comments was an encouragement to think about how I could take the topic of my talk to the next level.

Next level? Well … I thought the next step would be to convert the talk about “Breaking the Habit of Smalltalk” into something that can actually be used in real-life. So I created a Google Spreadsheet, went out on my social outlets and I asked all folks in my network to contribute fun/interesting/quirky questions. Soon enough, I ended up with a list of 150+ different questions that people had submitted.

Simultaneously, I was co-organizing a 260-person trip to Colombia for my fellow classmates at the GSB. As these things normally go, you have a lot of people meeting each other for the first time and just as I described in my talk, you end up with conversations that run on a path of predictable superficiality: "where you from, what did you do, etc. etc.”

So we thought we would spice it up a bit and printed 50 conversation cards – each with a fun and quirky question on it. We then distributed those cards upon arrival to make sure that everyone would have at least three conversation cards. And in our welcome announcement, we encouraged everyone to make use of them.

I’m sure that not everyone got a chance to do so, but I heard that many did and that those conversations ended up being very meaningful and memorable. I myself had the opportunity to use those cards during dinner on one of the evenings. We were four people and we ended up asking each other some of those questions. Looking back, it was pretty incredible how quickly our conversation ended up becoming very deep. From the first time undergoing Brazilian waxing to a history of suffering from eating disorders – everyone was sharing some very personal stories in an environment in which we felt heard and trusted.

Beyond the questions which do nothing more than to facilitate a conversation, the willingness to make oneself vulnerable in front of others is the real ingredient for a conversation to become meaningful. We ended the dinner with a group-hug and a wonderful dinner moment that we won’t forget again that quickly. Find below the list of 50 questions we used on this past trip!

When was the last time you did something for the first time?
What's your passion project these days?
So, what's your story?
Tell me something fun about yourself!
What’s the strangest thing about where you grew up?
How’d you end up in your line of work?
Which of your scars has the most interesting story to tell?
What was the weirdest/craziest thing you experienced abroad/while traveling?
Once you came online, which was the longest time you have been offline since?
Tell me something about yourself that you wouldn't mention on a first date/meet.
Which is you favorite blog/YT channel/Instagram/Twitter/news resource right now?
If you could solve one problem, which would it be?
What did you buy with your first salary ever?
What superpower would you chose if you had absolute free choice?
What job or activity would you do in spite of having all resources in the world?
When was the last time you were really proud of yourself?
What is the craziest thing you have ever done in your life?
What life experience made you grow the most?
Describe the last time someone's actions really surprised you.
What did you want to be when you were a child?
Do you have any nickname(s) and what's the background story?
What was your most embarrassing username/email address
How did your parents values shape your career choices?
What is the most depressed you've ever been?
What's your best opener on Tinder?
Would you pick a different career path if you did life over again?
Do you think you have become any better or worse looking with time?
What's the best date you have ever planned?
What's the coolest gift you ever gave someone?
How do you feel about open relationships?
Do you think you would be hot as the opposite sex?
What is the hardest thing about being you?
What was your last epiphany?
What companies align with your personal values?
What's the hardest thing you've ever gone through?
What experience have you had that made you a more compassionate person?
What is the nicest compliment you have ever received?
What's a moment you are proud of?
Has anything magical ever happened to you?
What was your best first kiss?
What romantic gesture would you be really stoked about?
Which event in history influenced you most?
What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?
For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
A crystal ball can tell you the truth about yourself or your future. What would you ask?
When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?
What would be a dealbreaker when it comes to dating someone?
What is your guilty pleasure?
What's the most illegal thing you did and are comfortable sharing?

FOMOG – The fear of missing out... of giving!

August 08, 2015

A few weeks before I left Google, something funny happened. My manager who is a Stanford GSB Alum asked me for a conversation. He wanted to share with me the top mistake which he was predicting I would do during the next two years at business school. Not necessarily a charming way to wish me the best on my new chapter I thought, but hey, you shouldn't say no to free advise, right?

So while this article is probably more/most useful for an ongoing MBA, the lesson he shared with me has general validity and applicability to situations beyond business school.

The "fear of missing out of giving"

John came up with this notion called “FOMOG” – the fear of missing out of giving. If you happen to have read Adam Grant’s “Give and Take,” (which I can highly recommend if you haven’t) this topic might sound somewhat familiar to you.

With FOMOG, he was describing the constant desire – if not even urge – to be contributing to others and the community. His argument was that many people who go to business school have this attitude of relentlessly wanting to contribute to class and the community.

While giving is generally a good thing (and here again, the book “Give and Take” makes a very strong point in favor of being a giver) there are different forms of giving and it’s important to keep a healthy balance among those forms. Going “all in” on the most popular category of giving, called the “Rockstar," can actually have negative returns as it diminishes the ability to receive.

In summary, there are three forms of giving and the different measures of impact that they each have.

1) The Rockstar – the very impressive form of giving: organizing a big class trip, a popular event, leading a club, etc.). A lot of people see your impact, get to know your name, benefit from what you do. It’s very "1:n” – you do a lot for many people, but you are not giving on a 1:1 level. This is a popular category as it provides a “stage to shine”

2) The Supporter – the giving opportunities that everyone knows are important but which receive much less credit: mentoring someone for 6 months, volunteering at an event, etc. Here it’s a “1:few” relationship where you are impacting fewer people, but in a more (inter)personal way.

3) The Trustee – the giving you do towards your closest friends and family which is very 1:1 and mostly unknown to others. This could be face to face conversations in which you discuss problems and solutions. However, you wouldn’t be bragging about how much impact you have with your family for example.

As you can see, there is a reversed relationship between “publicity and fame” and how “targeted and personal” your giving is (the Rockstar is high in publicity but not very targeted. The Trustee is the other way around).

By now, I probably talked to 50+ alum and if there was one recurring pattern in the advise they gave me, it was the importance to prioritize the third category, being a Trustee. They all talked about the 1:1 relationships they were able to build and that this sort of giving has been the most meaningful as they are still “receiving” through those relationships today. They were acknowledging the benefits of the Rockstar-type of giving, but they also made clear that the publicity and fame would oftentimes compromise the long-tern return of that type of giving.

My manager’s point was that many people who are natural givers aim for the 1:n-type giving which comes with a lot of publicity and fame (the Rockstar), but one that is not targeted and personal at all. And often times, this sort of giving takes a lot of giving-effort, without creating a venue for receiving on a personal level and a targeted manner. In his words: “the extent to which you dedicate yourself to category one (Rockstar) or two (Supporter), you automatically compromise on category 3 (Trustee). But the truth is that you need to create that room because the Trustee category is the one through which you’d be receiving most."

The longest-lasting value of any sort of experience can often times be found in the relationships that result from that experience. With that in mind, it’s important to find a balance among these three types of giving and to ensure that you give off stage (Trustee) as much as you give on stage (Rockstar & Supporter).

The short-term and long-term ROI of thinking positively!

August 05, 2015

Last week I was having four consecutive flights to get from Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania to Bali in Indonesia. Initially I thought it was crazy to embark on a trip consisting of four flights, but over time I found a lot of excitement in the idea of doing something new for the first time. Unexpectedly though, my third flight from Bangkok to Singapore was delayed and I missed my connection from Singapore to Bali.

After a lot of back and forth, I got the airline to pay my hotel in Singapore while I had to book myself on the first flight out to Bali the next morning. As my friends were finding out about what had happened, many tried to solace me for the situation I was in. But I wasn't sad or frustrated. Actually, I was quite happy. I found it exciting to be stranded in a new place. As I was thinking about my situation, something dawned on me. Namely that I couldn’t remember the last time I was deeply upset or negative about something.

"Getting angry is punishing yourself with other people's mistakes."

Just a week before this incident I was hiking Mount Kilimanjaro. One of the nights – it was the last night before we would embark on a 16h+ hike within the following 24 hours – I was plagued with terrible stomach issues. I had to wake up 6 times that night to make my way to the restrooms (imagine the hygiene of those restrooms in the middle of nowhere) which were a 5-minute walk away in the bitter cold of 4,000 meters of altitude. How did I keep myself positive? I was excited about seeing the shiny stars at night on my way to the restrooms.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the "short-term ROI” of learning to think positively is the ability to deal with these day-to-day situations. Basically, by learning to think positively in life, you are building a certain muscle that can help you deal with these situations that would otherwise cause you to react negatively and frustrated.

So far, so good. But is there also a long-term ROI to thinking positively? I’d like to argue that there is. Thinking positively prepares you for what I would call “match day.”

A few days ago I messaged my friend whose wedding I had attended a few weeks before. I wanted to see how his honeymoon was going but what I got in return was quite the story. It started with “I spent the last 24 days of my honeymoon hospitalized in Asia and had to undergo abdominal surgery” and it ended with “it’s been an unforgettable experience and great marriage bonding. We took it very positively and with a lot of humor.”

Not necessarily the type of response you would expect, right? And I felt I was living through the same story of the cancelled flight, but now with the roles switched! This time it was me who was trying to be solacing a friend for a negative experience even though he was positive about that experience. Only with the difference that this was a completely different level of experience and one that would be much easier to react negatively to.

What my friend had experienced was something that had been on my mind for a long time: “maybe I can deal with the day-to-day downs of life, but how would I cope with a big downer on match day?” My friend summarized his experience saying that “all the years of training your mind to be positive and happy and all of that are essential when match day arrives and you have to deal with real pressure. So I really don’t feel like it’s been hard or tough or scary, and that’s likely because of all the mental training I put myself through to learn to be happy, positive, and forward thinking.”

To be honest, I couldn’t have said it better. One might reap short-term benefits on a day-to-day basis by learning to think positively, but what happens is that you are building your positive thinking-muscle over time which you will depend on once a real big challenge arrives.

The single most important question I ask myself to be productive

July 10, 2015

I often get asked about my philosophy around getting things done. To the outside, it often seems that I’m uber-productive and constantly doing stuff. While I certainly am, I noticed that it’s really dangerous to fall into the trap of being in a state where it "feels productive to be busy." Busy in itself doesn’t get anything done. When you say you are busy, you can either find yourself in the state of achieving a ton, or in a state where you are not achieving anything at all. So how do you make sure you are actually productive?

One of my approaches actually being productive lies in a task and a question that goes with it.

The task is simple. I make myself aware of the key task(s) at hand. The emphasis here is on “key.” I might be working on a gazillion projects, but each project is at a different level of importance. As part of this task, I make sure I’m aware of the projects that are important and really need my focus. These are often the ones that are a bit more advanced and have thus taken shape. While I keep nurturing the lesser important projects, I make sure the more important ones are on top of my mind!

With that, I then ask myself a very simple question. "What have I done today to reach my goal?"

I remember a partnership that I was renegotiating at work. Just by itself it was an important partnership. What made it even more important back then was the fact that we were working against a deadline and that there were a lot of technical details I had to consider. I was running against time and became increasingly worried about my ability to succeed. In order to ensure that we were making progress, I woke up each day wondering what I would do on that very day to ensure that we made progress. By the end of the day, I would then ask myself in retrospective what I had done for us to be successful.

It is a simple question (and a simple task that goes hand in hand with it), but the task helps you put your attention to the right projects and the question helps you make sure not a single day goes by without you doing a step into the direction of success.

My biggest takeaway after over 2,000 days at Google

July 06, 2015

A few weeks ago I had my last day at Google. I had started with the company in 2009 and made the (difficult) decision this year to move on. I was sitting in my last team meeting when my manager asked me to share some thoughts and reflections from the last ±6 years.

I should have seen this coming, but I hadn’t … so the question really put me on the spot. I was scrabbling to come up with a compelling list of three things, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was only one thing I wanted to share with me team. And it had to do with time.

In those 2,000+ days, there was not a single day that I would look at the clock. Not a single day that I would be at work, yet want it to be time for me to go home. I made that realization because this used to be the case in all the other jobs I had. From consulting gigs to private equity advising – I remember watching the clock and wanting the day to come to an end so I could go home. But in all those 6 years, this has never been the case at Google.

I found this to be a powerful realization. I’m not saying that I wanted to work 24/7 and I’m not saying that there wasn’t any separation between work and my off-work life (even though there were times when that line was very blurry). That's not the point. The point is that I was doing something that give each of these past 2,000 days a certain sense of purpose. Even though there were days at which I didn't like my job, I wasn't dreading them because I knew my time in the office was well spent doing something meaningful.

At Google I felt that no matter if I liked or didn't like what I was doing (my actual enjoyment of the work), I knew it was something worthwhile doing. That's why I never felt the urge to run away from it. While I don't know what job will be next in my life and after school, I will try to find something that won't make me want to watch the clock and thus the work day to be over. And with that, I encourage you to ask yourself how you feel about your job based on this very simple idea: are you looking at the clock and hope the work day to be over? If the answer is yes, you might need to rethink what you are doing.

How I got invited to speak at TED, rejected it, but then did it anyway…

July 03, 2015

One of the things in life that I have come to appreciate most is its unpredictability. If someone had told me a few weeks ago that I would soon embark on a trip that would lead me to 5 countries in 5 days, just to give a TED talk to 750 people in no other place than Iran? IMPOSSIBLE.

In this piece I’d like to share with you everything I learned along the way.

A week before my photo exhibition about Iran opened in San Francisco, I was at an event where I ended up having a great conversation with someone whose name I couldn’t remember a few days later. I then tried to find his name on the participant list on Facebook. While doing so, I came across the Persian-sounding name of a girl who had also been there. Curious about who she was, I clicked on her profile and found myself flipping through pictures that she had recently taken in Iran. In case you are wondering, yes, I think this qualifies as Facebook-stalking someone. Since I could see her shared passion for photography and Iran, I allowed myself to invite her to the opening of my exhibition. Three days later I met Asya for the first time.

Since I had to play a social butterfly and greet 200+ people that evening, I we hardly got to talk. Our attempts to meet up in the days following the opening failed due to our busy schedules. So she left for Southern California and I headed to Latin America for work. A few weeks later, Asya reached out to me while I was in Argentina, asking for a chat over the phone.

She told me that she was co-organizing TEDxKish, the first global TEDx in Iran. The “global” qualified the event to go for more than one day and have international speakers and participants. The fact that Kish island was a free-visa zone — despite being under Iranian sovereignty — certainly made it the perfect location. And it didn’t take too long for her to ask me whether I would like to contribute.

My first reaction was: YES OF COURSE!!! So when I got off the phone with her at 11pm, I was awake until 4AM writing different speech proposals. Less than 24 hours later she had my resume, motivation letter and three speech drafts. The following evening I got to talk to Amir, the head curator for TEDxKish. Once again I was on a call that went until 4AM my time.

The conversation with Amir was absolutely daunting. Not only was he taking apart all my three proposals, but for the first time I began to understand the sheer magnitude of that invitation. 750 people in the audience — coming from all over the world. A long list of accomplished speakers with whom I would share the stage. And then the actual opportunity to share an idea with my people… providing an intellectual stimulus in a country that has suffered such a severe brain drain over the last 30+ years. I became incredibly intimidated and was wondering whether I was getting ahead of myself.

My excitement took a massive hit when he told me that I would have to be in Kish 2 days before the event to do all necessary rehearsals, etc. The event was on April 17th and 18th and since I had a speaking engagement in Switzerland on the 17th (an entrepreneurship conference), it was impossible for me to get there ahead of time. I was clear that I had to make a decision between those two events. Absolutely eager to accept the invitation, I told him that I would find “a solution.”

The next morning, I felt absolutely miserable. Not only completely sleep-deprived (second consecutive night with <4hs of sleep) on an already stressful work trip abroad, but also in such a difficult decision-making situation. To make things worse, Amir’s criticism on my topics made me extremely uncomfortable. I was a complete mess the following hours. Constantly ranging between picking up the phone and canceling my speaking engagement in Switzerland and emailing Amir to decline the invitation from TED. It then was a conversation with my friend and mentor John that helped me gain clarity: “it’s not about how you decide, but about what principles and moral framework you base your decision on.”

With that in mind, I asked myself whether I could justify such selfish decision to cancel a commitment just because something “better” had come up… and the answer was no. So I wrote an email to Amir, thankfully declining the invitation so I could honor my commitment in Switzerland. In that moment, I had given him EVERY reason to walk away from me. He had never met me, I didn’t have a proper talk, very little time to rehearse, and we were way past the speaker deadline … as I said, EVERY reason to reply “Thanks Omid, maybe next time.”

But he didn’t. He got back to me, saying that he was willing to make an exception and encouraging me to come if I could make it to the event. So with 2.5 weeks left to the event, I looked into flights and realized that there was a way to make it. Not an easy one, but it was possible. So I booked my flights and took every single minute to prepare my speech which I wanted to be about how we could redefine human interactions by “Breaking the Habit of Smalltalk.” And this is how it went down…

On the Tuesday before the TED event (which took place on the following Saturday) I did my first and only rehearsal in front of 30 colleagues at Google. The day after, Wednesday, I flew out from San Francisco to Zurich on a red-eye. I got there Thursday afternoon and spent the entire day & night (< 3 hours sleep) to write and prepare my speech about “Disrupting the Entrepreneurial Mind” for the START summit in St. Gallen! Then, 45 minutes after my speech (it’s Friday morning), I was already sitting in a car heading to Zurich airport. I then flew to Munich where I had a 5-hour layover. Took a shower, slept for 2 hours, and rehearsed my speech with a bunch of strangers at the Lufthansa Senator Lounge (I literally walked up to them and asked them whether they want to hear a TED talk). I then took a red-eye to Dubai, got there on Saturday morning and had another 5-hour wait for my connection flight to Kish.

That “connection flight to Kish?” Well, it almost broke my neck. Kish island is a 25-minute flight from Dubai and Kish Airways operates a single airplane on that route. I knew I would arrive in Kish at noon and that I would have exactly 4 hours until my scheduled talk at 4pm. As if I wasn’t sleep-deprived, nervous, stressed, exhausted and anxious enough… I looked at the board and MY. JAW. DROPPED. A 90-minute delay…. my heart and mind were racing: are 2.5 hours enough? Would they take me off the program? What if they cancel the flight or have more delays? I WAS SUCH A WRECK.

Fortunately, it was the only delay. I got to Kish, passport stamped, rushed to the Hotel — MY ROOM IS NOT READY YET??!! –, showered, shaved, ironed my shirt and then ran to the convention center to check in: “Scheybani is your name? Sure you are a speaker? Impossible .. they all arrived here a few days ago…” Got him to believe me, ran backstage, tried to power-nap, it didn’t work, took a double shot of espresso, didn’t work either, went through my speech one last time, another shot of espresso — a little better now — got wired up, and then I was pushed on stage….

The day I got invited I had every reason to say no. I had just finished my first photo exhibition, had my parents visiting, was on a stressful work trip in Brazil and Argentina, had finished a speaker engagement in Canada and the one in Switzerland coming up, had plans to go to Coachella — I was really exhausted and had enough reasons to justify to myself that it wouldn’t be a good idea. But there is something absolutely magical about getting the opportunity to contribute to the people and country you hold so dear — despite the energy, effort and cost it requires.

I’m fortunate to look back on an experience that taught me 3 simple things about life. First, taking small risks in life can really pay off. If I had not dared to invite a random girl to my exhibition, I would have never gotten the TED invitation in return. One small message made all the difference. Second, your body and mind are capable of doing things that are nothing short of amazing. I was seriously worried about whether I could get there and get on stage, but when you feel you are doing the right things, your body and mind can pull off an incredible performance. Third, when there is something you are willing to stay up for until 4AM … it’s probably one of your life’s passions. The energy and passion I felt to make this happen were unparalleled and unbound.

As I was bidding farewell to Amir the next day, I looked into his eyes and asked him: “you had every reason to accept my “no” … why did you get back to me, encouraging me to come even though you didn’t know me?” …he just smiled and said: “you sent me all right signals.”

THE POSITUDE

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